‘The Magicians’ Renewed For Season 2 By Syfy

Three episodes into its freshman run, Syfy’s new drama series The Magicians has been renewed for a 13-episode second season to air in 2017.

Along with The Expanse, also recently renewed for a second season, The Magicians is part of Syfy’s new original scripted slate following the network’s course correction two years ago.

Like The Expanse, The Magicians has been relatively well received by critics while delivering modest linear TV ratings. Its first three episodes averaged 1.7 million viewers and 853,000 adults 18-49 in Live+3. Syfy stresses the series’ strength among younger viewers, with adults 18-34 growing consecutively over each episode, averaging 180% above Syfy’s primetime delivery in that demo. Additionally, Syfy says that the series’ first episode, which was previewed on the network behind Childhood’s End in December, was sampled more than 6.7 million times digitally during its pre-linear launch in January.

Based on the bestselling novels from Lev Grossman, The Magicians centers on Quentin (Jason Ralph), a brilliant grad student chosen to attend Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a secret upstate New York university specializing in magic. Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman, Arjun Gupta and Summer Bishil co-star. The Magicians, from Universal Cable Prods., is executive produced by John McNamara, Sera Gamble, Henry Alonso Myers and Groundswell Productions’ Michael London and Janice Williams. Episode 4 of the series airs tonight.

“Thanks to an extraordinarily gifted creative team of executive producers and our partners at Universal Cable Productions, The Magicians has become a buzzed-about hit, enchanting fans of the novels as well as attracting new and younger audiences to Syfy,” said Syfy and Chiller president Dave Howe.

Next for Syfy is the debut of another new scripted series, drama Hunters from The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd.